"I will now speak of the higher purpose of God in giving us eyes.
Sight is the source of the greatest benefits to us; for if our eyes
had never seen the sun, stars, and heavens, the words which we have
spoken would not have been uttered. The sight of them and their
revolutions has given us the knowledge of number and time, the power
of enquiry, and philosophy, which is the great blessing of human life;
not to speak of the lesser benefits which even the vulgar can
appreciate. God gave us the faculty of sight that we might behold the
order of the heavens and create a corresponding order in our own
erring minds. To the like end the gifts of speech and hearing were
bestowed upon us; not for the sake of irrational pleasure, but in
order that we might harmonize the courses of the soul by sympathy with
the harmony of sound, and cure ourselves of our irregular and
graceless ways." - Plato's Timaeus
